Schenker unveils Ultra and Zenith families of hexa-core gaming notebooks with Coffee Lake-S

Now that Intel Coffee Lake for desktops has been made official, enthusiast Clevo resellers like Schenker and Eurocom can finally unveil what they have been brewing for their next generation of gaming notebooks. These are some of the most powerful consumer notebooks money can buy with core specifications and features that rival dedicated gaming PCs.

Schenker XMG Ultra 15, Ultra 17 and Zenith 17

Each of these three notebooks will utilize hexa-core Coffee Lake CPUs up to the Core i7-8700K for insane clock rates of up to 4.7 GHz. Schenker will also apply Grizzly Kryonaut thermal paste to optimize heat transfer between the CPU/GPU and copper heat pipes in an attempt to reduce operating temperatures. Clevo systems are notoriously loud even for a portable gaming machine and so we're hoping that these new steps will lead to quieter fans.

The main difference between the Ultra 17 and Zenith 17 is that the latter will support GTX 1080 SLI graphics not unlike the MSI GT83VR. Meanwhile, the Ultra 15 can be configured with up to the GTX 1060 or GTX 1070 while the Ultra 17 can house up to a single GTX 1080.

FHD, WQHD, and 4K UHD Options

Starting with the smaller 15.6-inch Ultra 15, the notebook will ship with a 120 Hz display that promises fast 5 ms response times to reduce ghosting similar to what is already available on most MSI and Aorus notebooks. On the other hand, the larger 17.3-inch Ultra 17 and Zenith 17 will share WQHD (2560 x 1440, 120 Hz, 5 ms) and 4K UHD (3840 x 2160) G-Sync options. It's unlikely that the latter option will have the same refresh rate and response time advantages as the FHD and WQHD options since 4K UHD panels with such features are not yet available in mass quantities for notebooks.

Other Notable Features

The Ultra and Zenith models will include anti-ghosting keyboards, tri-zone RGB keyboard backlighting, ESS Sabre HiFi DAC, Intel Optane, Thunderbolt 3, mDP, HDMI, and Killer NIC Ethernet. The larger Ultra 17 and Zenith 17 will also each integrate a subwoofer. It's slightly disappointing to not see individually-lit RGB keys as the feature has become standard on newer Aorus, MSI, and Razer offerings.

Schenker is now allowing customers to configure and order the Ultra and Zenith notebooks with starting prices of 1700 Euros and 2600 Euros, respectively. Shipments, however, are not expected to begin until the middle of November. We imagine that Eurocom will have very similar offerings shipping the same month as well.

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